Fur Coat

For anyone who's ever had a lab, you know that while their fur is not very long, it is abundant and labs can shed enough fur to fill 3 pillowcases in your house. And Lyka was no exception. On the flipside you would also imagine that a canine with this thick an outer coat would be rather immune to an Indian winter and would look forward to crisp days. While Lyka would bound about with renewed energy during winter days, as a puppy she would shiver at night in Agartala winters. At first I thought covering her with a sheet would solve the problem and I would religiously tuck her in at night. Come morning, the blanket would have been thrown off in some corner of the house, having had little effect on Lyka. Then I decided I would fashion a sweater for her - I found a t-shirt that I had grown out of and painstakingly put Lyka's legs throught the arm holes and had her walking around in the dog-sized sweater for a while. I don't think she appreciated it much because she found a way to get it off after a few days. Then I decided she would fend for herself since I had run out of ideas.

Lyka was possibly the only dog in the world who would insist on spending hours out in the sun, even on the hottest and most humid of Madras summer days. I think this was her method of cleansing herself. She was also possibly the only fur coat possessing person who would feel cold if you left the a/c in your room on for too long. I know several dog owners give their canines haircuts in summer so the dog won't wilt in the heat, but I have a feeling that Lyka would have missed her coat even when she sat outside basking in the sunlight.

Orange Peels and Marmalade

Lyka's first winter with us was soon after she came home and at this time we still hadn't figured out what foods she would and would not eat. So in the course of our experiments, I sat down to peel an orange one day. Lyka being curious about this new edible came close to smell and categorize the fruit into "friend/foe." Now we all know how the orange peel has a habit of squirting and this usually hits someone's eyes with accuracy. In this case Lyka got caught squarely and I can only describe her reaction as complete shock that something round and generally characterless could sting so much. She backed away and watched me warily, thinking this was some form of punishment I had devised. That day forward, you couldn't bring Lyka within 3 feet of an orange and if you brought the peel anywhere near her face she would snarl (gently) and let you know orange were no joke to her.

9 lives

Lyka loved car rides - she would happily place herself strategically on the back seat so no one else could sit and watch the traffic and the world go by. She would also proceed to drool and shed fur all over the backseat which prompted us to stow a Lyka sheet in the boot of the car on a permanent basis. You'd always know if Lyka had been in the car. The window would be marked with her nose having been pressed against it and if you were wearing dark coloured clothes, you could be assured that you would walk away covered in fur.

When we first moved to Madras and moved into our apartment, we would have Lyka be dropped off at my grandmom's house in the morning so she could wander about the garden and I would pick her up on my way home from school. This was to let her get some sun and generally get acclamatized to living in the city.

On one fateful afternoon, Lyka had been loaded into the front seat by the driver and I was sitting in the back, with her leash in my hand. Lyka liked the window down so her ears would fly in the wind. We were half way home when we crossed a bullock cart (the kind that uses emaciated bulls and occuppies the whole road moving at a glacial speed). Lyka never liked cows - it's that whole dog in the manger thing I think. She started barking wildly at the poor bovine and got extremely agitated. I was trying to get her to calm down when all of a sudden she leapt out the car window and landed on the road. I have no idea what she was attempting to do - perhaps being on the same eye level with the bull emboldened her. The driver screeched to a halt, having lost a few hours of his life I'm sure, and I nearly had a heart attack. Now remember Lyka's leash was still in my hand. If we hadn't been moving at 2 kmph trying to overtake the cart, Lyka could have very easily snapped her neck. Having recovered from my shock, I got out, seething at the silly dog's idiocy, bundled up the canine and put her in the backseat with me, her collar firmly in hand and all windows rolled up. Lyka of course thought it was a brilliant change from the monotony of being driven home and seemed quite happy about the events that had passed.

We learned our lesson and after that day the car windows would be rolled down only enough to let Lyka smell the world. Fresh breeze could wait till we got home.